Check this out a newly-filed complaint, filed in a New York federal court, challenging New York’s ban on hydraulic fracking as a taking. Our firm represents the plaintiffs, so we won’t be saying much here.
But we will point out that this one is very much like the O.G. modern takings case, Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922). The private property alleged to have been taken is a distinct and separate interest which state law “has long recognized as severable, and thus a separate and independent estate from the surface interest.” Complaint ¶ 8, at 3. Here’s the heart of the claim:
By prohibiting every commercially viable method of extraction, New York forces the Woodwards to leave their mineral estate economically idle without any form of compensation. This amounts to a total taking of private property that violates the Fifth Amendment.
Complaint ¶ 9, at 3.
More about the case here.
Stay tuned for more as the case progresses.